Saturday, July 5, 2008

Justifying losing money; or, how GameStop is printing its own profits

Very rarely can you feel good about giving things up and getting much less for your money value than you should, but I honestly feel like that right now after a trip to GameStop to return some games for store credit. I traded in three games I'm not playing much right now - NBA 2K8, NCAA Football 08, and FIFA 08 - in exchange for $43 worth of in-store credit, which I turned into a brand new copy of Major League Baseball 2k8 and a scant $3 worth of a card.

In theory, selling games back to retailers makes sense. I had three sports games I didn't play much (and, in the case of NCAA 08, a game that was about to see its trade-in value nose-dive - its replacement NCAA 09 is due in a week, two max), the store gets to buy them back and re-sell them at a lower price then new, and it's a profit margin for the store. Makes sense, right?

I added to the 2008 totals tonight, even though my friend Nick and I got there just before the store was supposed to be closed - and even though the manager and the other goober clearly wanted to leave, badly.

So how is this $650 million made? Simple: mark up the price on hot used games, and quite seriously low-ball gamers on their sales. Like, "here's some lube, you'll need it" low-ball on the amount of money you get back (oh, and if you want it in cash, that's a certain percentage less that you get. It's a fucking racket).

Let's take my turn-ins for the night as an example. I received $43 for my efforts. I don't know the specific breakdown of how much money each was worth, but I do know that FIFA 08 was probably the most out of the three I got. I also got an extra $10 for turning in three "next-gen" (re: PS3, 360 or Wii) games, which is clearly another indication that three is the magic number. So, without bringing the De La Soul-style bonus, I got $33.

How much do these games retail for used from EB? According to EBGames.com (same parent company as GameStop), the PS3 version of NCAA 08 is $19.99 (no 360 version and the prices are usually the same), the 360 version of NBA 2k8 is $26.99, and the 360 version of FIFA 08 is $44.99.

GameStop paid me $43, including a $10 bonus, for games they will turn around and sell for a grand total of $91.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how $650 million of profit is made. Somehow, I can still justify it - I mean, those games were just lying around, right? Might as well get something new - but I still feel horrible knowing that I am nothing but $.50 profit on the dollar to GameStop.

51 comments:

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